The demographic characteristics of immigrant population in Norway

This report presents a demographic analysis of immigration to Norway, and of immigrants in Norway. It starts with the immigration history, showing that the proportion immigrants in the population was larger at the beginning of than in the middle of the previous century. Since then, the immigration has increased, and changed its composition. Earlier, it was dominated by immigrant workers from our neighbouring countries, then more workers came also from distant countries, and the influence of refugees increased.

Taken all together, more than 500 000 persons (11 per cent of the population) have some kind of immigrant background, themselves or at least one of their parents are born abroad. Fifty per cent (250 000) are born abroad with two foreign-born parents, 50 000 are born in Norway with two parents born abroad. Together, these two groups consist the immigrant population in Norwegian statistics. Citizenship cannot be used as a statistical definition of immigrants, as 140 000 have been naturalised during the 25 years we have had statistics on that.

This report shows beyond any doubt that the immigrants in Norway is a very heterogeneous group, not having more than some kind of foreign background in common. All immigrants taken as one single group is without meaning for analytical or descriptive purposes, at least one needs a breakdown by region of origin. Immigration figures are not easily compared between countries, but it seems that the level of immigration to Norway is somewhat more than half that of Sweden and the Netherlands.

The refugees are almost everyone of non-western origin, and consist 50 per cent of all non-western immigrants to Norway. Of the 84 000 refugees, three fourth were primary refugees, and one fourth were accepted for family reunification to persons already being given protection in Norway.

The immigrants in Norway are a rather young population, with few old persons. There are, however, big differences according to region and country of origin. Among non-western immigrants, we have more children and fewer older persons than among western immigrants. This is due both to differences in age at immigration and different fertility.

On average, the fertility is higher among immigrants than in the rest of the population. It does, however, vary much between the different countries of origin, and it adapts to the Norwegian pattern with increasing duration of stay, and between the generations. As a result of children born to immigrants, the fertility rate in Norway is 0.05 children higher than it would have been without immigrants.

Immigrants from western countries often return when forming a family. Non-western immigrants primarily find their partners in their country of origin, or among persons from their country of origin, already settled in Norway. Crossnational marriages are not very common. Persons born in Norway with two foreign-born parents are now entering the age of family formation. Those in this group marrying at young ages seem to follow the marital pattern of their parents, but the proportion marrying young is much lower.

Hitherto, we have had little knowledge about immigrant mortality in Norway. It seems that, for third world immigrants as a whole, there is no significant difference in mortality when comparing with the population in Norway. There is, however, a significant lower mortality for the first generation immigrants, counterbalanced by a clearly higher mortality for persons born in Norway with two parents born in a third world country.

Immigration influences the growth and composition of the Norwegian population, in an increasing degree. Norway has a population growth relatively high in Europe, due both to high immigration, and to high natural growth relative to the rest of Europe.

Acknowledgement : The Research Council of Norway.